From Wisconsin Club for Growth
Mary Burke and Poor Kids
One of life’s little ironies is the spectacle of Democrats winning elective office by playing class warfare games. They ooze empathy for the poor and denounce the selfish “one percent”—and then immediately set to work abolishing opportunities for the poor and reclassifying the income of middle-class taxpayers as the one percent. Mary Burke has seemingly reversed the sequence of events: Democrats ordinarily get elected first, then pull the rug out from under the poor who helped elect them.
Let's start with Burke’s unapologetic statement last week that if elected governor, she would undo the statewide expansion of school choice. Apparently case she missed a key detail, school choice is not a program designed primarily to benefit the well-off. It's an opportunity for children in families living below the poverty line to get out of failing schools.
That Burke would be hostile to Wisconsin’s voucher program is predictable. Her sole previous foray into electoral politics is as a member of the Madison school board. The prerequisite for membership in that august body, firmly established over decades, is absolute support for the public school monopoly and contempt for any questions from the taxpayers who sustain it.
What's so surprising is that Burke has no reluctance to declare herself a foe of school choice, yet she frets over what to do about the Holy Grail of Wisconsin’s Left, repeal of Act 10.
Not surprising is the lack of enthusiasm among Democrats for her candidacy. They apparently understand she'll throw any of them under the bus to get elected. Starting with poor children in failing school districts.
